In recent years, gaming consoles have become very popular with consumers and in particular with children. Generally, a game console enables a user to play games, movies, and music, and more recently, facilitates the play of games while communicating with other players over the Internet. However, the addition of an Internet connection to a game console that is used by children is of particular concern to many parents. Children are not always aware of their vulnerability to online predators who can coax an unsuspecting child into providing personal information or engaging in unwanted communication, or even agreeing to meet in person. Furthermore, provisions of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998 (COPPA) require that Web sites directed to children and general audience sites that knowingly collect personal information from children post privacy policies and obtain parental consent as a prerequisite to collecting such information.
Currently, it can be quite difficult for parents to supervise the activities of their children on a game console unless they are actually present while the child is playing. An Internet connected game console can also be used to make purchases, which provides yet another potential problem for concerned parents desiring to supervise their children's purchases. For example, an unsupervised child can make purchases using a credit card number of which a parent may not become aware until the credit card statement arrives. Yet another concern for parents of young game console users is the mature content of many games designed for adults or more mature audiences. Game and media rating systems have been developed in several countries to provide guidance to parents about the content of games, movies, and music. The rating systems enable parents to identify games having mature content to aid in making a decision about purchasing an item. However, a game rating system is ineffective when a parent is not involved in a purchase decision—for instance, when a child makes an unsupervised purchase. Therefore, a demand exists for new ways for enabling supervised security settings for a media console to establish controls on the online activities of children that address these and other concerns.